"LOS ANGELES -- The level of inorganic mercury in the blood of American women has been increasing since 1999 and it is now found in the blood of one in three women, according to a new analysis of government data for more than 6,000 American women.

'My study found compelling evidence that inorganic mercury deposition within the human body is a cumulative process, increasing with age and overall in the population over time,' said author Dan Laks, a neuroscience researcher at the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles.

In a separate statistical analysis, he found that older women had more inorganic mercury in their blood than younger women, indicating that mercury accumulates in the blood over time. "